Page 27 of Saving Lauren

“You have to stay strong, my friend. I know the mate bond must be screaming in agony right now, but you have to override it to get her back. We will get her back and we will cut off the heads of those Sternotheri who dared to touch her.”

He is right, of course, I have to somehow dim the bond and reach into myself to find my warrior-calm. I take a deep breath and focus on the thought of my Zarra. Her smiles, her laughter. The way she feels when I hold her. I straighten myself and I feel my inner calm taking over. It’s a deadly calm, O’Rec senses it nodding his approval. I don’t like pushing away the bond, but for now I need to. L’Ren needs me to.

T’Rak is running full diagnostics now and O’Rec and I join him at the screens.

“Fuckers carved a hole in the side of the ship, just at the fucking blind spot. I don’t understand how they managed to get here undetected. They must have been stalking us for a while to know just where to go,” O’Rec says.

T’Rak growls. “The disturbance that came from the belt. They must have had some sort of blocker.”

I growl. “They will die.”

“They will,” T’Rak vows and then he turns towards O’Rec. “Can you patch the hole up quickly? We will focus on finding the Sternotheri.”

O’Rec jumps into action and heads towards the airlock, while T’Rak and I run a full environmental scan. The Sternotheri are not as good as they think, because we find small traces of their ship. Not enough for a regular ship to follow them, but we are Arracate. Our tech is still the most advanced in the galaxy and for us, even a breadcrumb is enough.

CHAPTER 14

Lauren

Ifeel groggy. Did I fall asleep again? I try to open my eyes, but it’s taking too much effort, so I close them again. I feel cold, so cold. This is not right. I am not cold anymore. I am warm, and cherished. I must be dreaming again, and I feel myself sinking back into the blackness. I smell something terrible, and I startle awake. Dreams don’t have scents. I force myself to fully wake up.

“This is a pretty one, don’t you think?” I hear a strange voice say. “Do you think he will mind if we play with his little pet a bit before we return her?”

I try to open my eyes again, fighting against my heavy lids and I am almost there when I feel something touching my arm.

I am fully awake now, adrenaline is kicking in. I shriek as I open my eyes, shrinking away from the touch. My adrenaline is pouring through my veins, because what I see in front of me is terrifying.

There’s a menacing looking alien crouching right in front of me. He seems just as big as D’Var. He is a slimy greenish gray, his upper body looks like it’s covered in some sort of shell. He has beady eyes which look at me with the wrong sort of hunger and I shuffle back even further until I feel my back hit a wall.

I look around and see that I’m in some kind of prison cell. Plastered to the back wall, which is also the only solid wall in this cell. The other walls are all made up of bars, and I can see rows of cells in both directions. They are all empty though, so this is not just a regular kidnapping.

“What do you want from me?” I shriek. He starts laughing.

“You don’t think Yalix will let his favorite little pet leave now, would you?”

Yalix. Now there’s a name I hoped I would never hear again. My first owner. I feel all the color draining from my face and I start trembling.

The alien starts cackling as he stands up and towers over me.

“I see that you remember him, little human. He was not so pleased you got out of your little glass prison. He made us do a whole lot of killing. We got to enjoy the other pets before we killed them though. Fun times. And now we have found you. He has a plan for you, little pet. You will be punished for playing house with those filthy Warriors.” He pauses his rant to spit on the ground. “We will deal with them after we have returned you to Yalix. He is waiting eagerly for you.”

Then he turns around and walks out of the cell. Another alien closes the door as they walk away together. Leaving me a complete mess.

I don’t think I am processing the situation. I am shivering and I hug my knees to my chest while swaying a bit.

Yalix. If evil had a name, it would have his. He is a Caudata, an alien species who live on a planet which consists of 80% water, so his species live partly underwater. He may appear humanoid, but when you take a closer look, you’ll find his fingers and toes are webbed. His skin is slimy, his touch revolting. His forked tongue still haunts my nightmares. His beady eyes and noseless face appear in my mind. I mentally freeze, causing shivers to rake through my body. I am locked in the terrors of my mind, reliving my worst nightmares.

Yalix bought me straight off the abductor’s spaceship. I still had some kind of hope back then that it was all a terrible mistake and that I would wake up in my own bed any second. I couldn’t understand a thing back then, but the second I was in his ‘care’ he pumped me full of all kinds of shots, and they installed a translator behind my ear. Turned out, being able to hear his commands was crucial to his end goals.

The first weeks with him were all a bit of a blur, I did a lot of crying. The mental and physical pain of the rapes and beatings blended everything together. In hindsight he was testing how much I could take. Turns out I exceeded his expectations, he kept me as his personal ‘little pet’.

I shiver, and I feel a tear slide down my face. It’s pitch black in here and it is freezing cold. Must be some kind of torture-method. I do a quick body scan and I feel lucky that nothing really hurts. I still have my clothes, boots, and apart from some bruises I’m fine. I do still feel a little groggy, so I guess the drugs they hit me with were meant for a bigger person. I shiver again, the cold is bone-deep which makes me glad I am still fully clothed.

I hear noises and a door opens. I squint my eyes, trying to see as much as I can. It’s two aliens, I think they are the same ones that were here earlier, they are cackling about something. A light gets turned on, forcing me to squint against it. The light is overwhelming, illuminating the entire cell block. All empty. I inwardly cringe. This means they can do whatever the hell they want to me, nobody is going to give a damn.

One of the aliens drums his claw along the bars, making a terrifying sound as he moves towards my cell. I make myself as small as I can. My mind is working overtime, my thoughts are jumbled. There has to be a way I can fight. A way I can make my way back to D’Var. But they keep the door closed and I see nothing but empty cells and nowhere to go.

“Well, hello, little human,” the alien from before says. “We have a little present for you...”

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